Monday, January 2, 2017

Abisko, Sweden

We had a busy start to December.  It was a blast, but non stop visitors had us looking forward to a relaxing vacation in front of a fireplace.  We had a few excursions planned, but lots of down time throughout our week in Sweden to recover from such a busy couple of weeks. I had visions of us curled up in front of a fireplace reading and drinking hot chocolate. When we arrived, we quickly realized that was not the case.



We took the train from Kiruna after dog sledding to arrive about an hour north.  We found the guest house we were staying at and checked in.  The staff was friendly and we were excited to be in Abisko for a few days.  We got the keys to our room and made our way to our room.  We knew ahead of time that we'd be sleeping in bunk beds, but we were not expecting a room the size of a walk in closet.   We quickly realized that there was no fireplace to curl up in front of, nowhere to eat except a kitchen, and lots of very loud guests.  Not quite the relaxing hotel we had expected, but we persevered. 

The biggest issue at first was where to get food. We were in the middle of nowhere with no restaurants or grocery store. There was a food truck, but it closed as we were checking in to our hotel, so that option was gone. Luckily, we found a little candy store that had a small food supply, so we bought some pasta and spaghetti sauce.  I guess the idea was to purchase groceries in Kiruna and bring them with us when we trained up. Oh well....

We spent the night at the guesthouse.  There wasn't much to do, but by the time we cooked dinner and got settled, it was almost time for bed. The next day, Mike had an ice fishing excursion booked and I planned to hang around.  I was kind of bummed because I hoped to get some good blogging done, but the internet was out, so instead I read a lot on the bunk bed.  Not quite the fireplace scene I envisioned, but it worked.





 

That afternoon, we ventured out.  We were really in the middle of nowhere, but there were a few other hotels nearby and we made the 2km trek to one for lunch.  Two kilometers doesn't sound like that much until it's in the snow. It took us about 40 minutes to get there and by the time we arrived, we were both hungry. It was totally worth the trek though because this hotel was so nice.  It was exactly how we envisioned.  A cozy fireplace, a full restaurant, and even a little convenience store.  We spent the afternoon there, eating lunch, stocking up on groceries and enjoying a warm fireplace.


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